Yes, as I got older I gained more wealth. I also gain more wisdom. I also learned from my mistakes. Those mistakes include paying full price at launch and even lifetime subscription for games that were mediocre at best.
I want to be able to play for free so I can try out the game to see whether I like it. If it's good I will pay fro the box plus sub. If publishers made the first 20 levels free to play it would force developers to give us something good and not just the mediocre crap they have been giving us over the last couple of years.
everyone wants to play good games for free but thats not how it works and its not that simple. Games arent charity. But companies waste too much money on the wrong parts of the game.... If they spend money wisely they wouldnt need to milk players or to force a subscription-only model. And people would stop saying that sub = superiority, which isnt true anymore, because the companies arent being smart with the money anymore. They just throw money everywhere to try and get fame claiming their game is the most expensive one ever. Swtor taught us that more money does not = better product.
If they stop wasting money while making a game, the B2P model would reign. Not free, and not milking.
everyone wants to play good games for free but thats not how it works and its not that simple. Games arent charity. But companies waste too much money on the wrong parts of the game.... If they spend money wisely they wouldnt need to milk players or to force a subscription-only model. And people would stop saying that sub = superiority, which isnt true anymore, because the companies arent being smart with the money anymore. They just throw money everywhere to try and get fame claiming their game is the most expensive one ever. Swtor taught us that more money does not = better product.
If they stop wasting money while making a game, the B2P model would reign. Not free, and not milking.
Holy [CENSORED]!!!!!
Common sense?
WTF
The only difference for me, is that B2P would be OK, if that's what it truly is. Not F2P with a boxed fee. But that's just my personal preference, I don't like shops in the game.
The MMORPG industry has changed into the MMO industry.
But the luminaries & oldschoolers who built this genre of gaming are now in the 30's & 40's. Brad McQuaid, John Smedley, Lord British and any of the people who played Meridain, Ultima & EQ. We are all adults now, all earning income & have homes, boats, sportscars, Jet ski's, etc..
So who exactly is asking for, & seeking out Free to Play games..?
It is children and adolescent youth from ages 12 ~22^ who have limited, or no source of income.
Just had my NFL draft this past weekend and looked around the room at many of my EQ guildmates and wondered why they would want a free game to play... So I asked. The response was unanimous "No!" They don't want to be troubled with "free realms" community & mentality. (easy is not challenging)
So why are the oldschooler being under sold..? An adult can easily throw $240 ~ $500/year (at a game) if we want... yet most Dev's are making games for children and try to nickel & dime their parents. Instead of going strait to the revenue source.
Why not go strait to the revenues and make a premium game... and charge a premium..?
FWIW: I am 43 and spent $155 on 4 tanks of gasoline this holiday weekend. (<---- Why don't developers want any of that money..? ^^)
What's up with the "MMORPGs turned into MMOs" nonsense at the start? These are all still quite clearly RPGs we're talking about.
Also it's well-known that F2P rides on the backs of the whales. And if you think that 22-and-under crowd are the majority of the whales then you're crazy. They're a much smaller segment compared with all the players over 22.
I mean if you were actually right about your assumption then F2P games wouldn't make more money than P2P ones. But they do. Because of the whales.
I guess you could say they do on average. I doubt if they F2P are out earning WoW.
everyone wants to play good games for free but thats not how it works and its not that simple. Games arent charity. But companies waste too much money on the wrong parts of the game.... If they spend money wisely they wouldnt need to milk players or to force a subscription-only model. And people would stop saying that sub = superiority, which isnt true anymore, because the companies arent being smart with the money anymore. They just throw money everywhere to try and get fame claiming their game is the most expensive one ever. Swtor taught us that more money does not = better product.
If they stop wasting money while making a game, the B2P model would reign. Not free, and not milking.
Holy [CENSORED]!!!!!
Common sense?
WTF
The only difference for me, is that B2P would be OK, if that's what it truly is. Not F2P with a boxed fee. But that's just my personal preference, I don't like shops in the game.
i didnt mention cash shop but i was strictly talking about B2P vs Sub-only models. Leaving full free out of the equation. The only reason behind a subscription taht actually makes a bit of sense is to maintain servers and people working on them. WHich can be addressed if the company use the money wisely.
Lol, yes I know so little about the genre because you have assumptions? I am talking about the trends in mainstream AAA or even I guess AA MMORPG's. Why most games you see come out subscription based and have to switch.
Right, because your entire post wasn't one massive assumption, you are the world authority on the MMO industry.
Also love how you still call MMOs that are forced to go F2P due to lack of people playing them "AAA"...anything to help fit your narrow view into the little bubble you created for it.
F2P is taking over in the west because the west has been lagging behind the east on revenue for many years...and with games of far lower quality. Now that the quality of eastern games are catching up, the west has little choice but convert or be bought out like so many others already have. Nexon alone has spent more money buying out companies than Turbine, Funcom and Trion makes combined.
They switch because there is more money in the F2P field...now if only they actually went F2P and not FREEMIUM, which is NOT where the money is. The west better shape up quick before they lose it all...the only big guns that are going to remain are EA and Blizzard...EA is trash and Blizzard isn't exactly pushing out a lot of MMOs.
I guess you could say they do on average. I doubt if they F2P are out earning WoW.
Since you said "F2P' and not "a F2P game" I will tell you that you are guessing wrong.
Nexon is the third largest gaming company on the planet profit wise behind only Activision/Blizzard and EA.
Two of those companies make a ton of games that are not MMOs...the other makes over 60% of their profits from their F2P online games...guess which it is.
Now factor in the profits of NDoors which spent over 300 million of their profits buying out companies the last couple years and NCSoft which also makes most of their profits from non-sub games...or that somehow Runes of Magic is making massive profits after all these years. Or how about how PWI is posting profits placing it just behind SOE which makes 100x as many products...
Sorry, WoW is not making more than F2P. F2P is where the real money is, you don't see it because you don't know F2P, you know FREEMIUMs that are being called F2P here in the west. Neverwinter is one of the FEW true F2P games made in the west, but its being run by an eastern company, PWI.
The actual data is based on the fact, as people get older... they have more wealth. Thus more to spend.
You know (?), as these strange creatures called "adults" as the mature from adolescents. These adults tend to seek out more and more challenging things to quench their thirst.
The move from checkers, to chess... as their thinking and problem solving grow dynamically.
How old are you?
None of which shows any correlation between how people choose to pay or not pay for their entertainment.
None of which shows that free to play games are less challenging than pay to play games.
So have any data at all?
This is a real world argument not a text book where's your data argument. And the real world I live in, which is full of adults making decent money, hate F2P games.
We understand there is far more value in paying one low price and having access to 100% percent of a game over the annoyances of managing nickels and dimes on your game time. You don't need data to know that. Its common sense.
F2P games are for kids / people on a budget (poor people that cant afford the cost of a meal for an entire months worth of game play) the financially incompetent or finally the guy with money to burn that wants to buy his way to PVP dominance.
This is a real world argument not a text book where's your data argument. And the real world I live in, which is full of adults making decent money, hate F2P games.
We understand there is far more value in paying one low price and having access to 100% percent of a game over the annoyances of managing nickels and dimes on your game time. You don't need data to know that. Its common sense.
F2P games are for kids / people on a budget (poor people that cant afford the cost of a meal for an entire months worth of game play) the financially incompetent or finally the guy with money to burn that wants to buy his way to PVP dominance.
Sure as long as your real world argument is based on the tiny portion of the real world that exists in your little head.
The actual real world, as in the entire planet, says you are wrong.
This is a real world argument not a text book where's your data argument. And the real world I live in, which is full of adults making decent money, hate F2P games.
We understand there is far more value in paying one low price and having access to 100% percent of a game over the annoyances of managing nickels and dimes on your game time. You don't need data to know that. Its common sense.
F2P games are for kids / people on a budget (poor people that cant afford the cost of a meal for an entire months worth of game play) the financially incompetent or finally the guy with money to burn that wants to buy his way to PVP dominance.
An anecdotal and emotional claim that the market data does not support.
F2P games are spanking subscription games financially across all demographics. The only exception to this is WoW, and even that gigantic dinosaur from the subscription ages is losing share to current F2P and B2P games.
In fact, without empirical data the only accurate thing you can claim is YOU hate F2P games, and a market of one is no market.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
This is a real world argument not a text book where's your data argument. And the real world I live in, which is full of adults making decent money, hate F2P games.
We understand there is far more value in paying one low price and having access to 100% percent of a game over the annoyances of managing nickels and dimes on your game time. You don't need data to know that. Its common sense.
F2P games are for kids / people on a budget (poor people that cant afford the cost of a meal for an entire months worth of game play) the financially incompetent or finally the guy with money to burn that wants to buy his way to PVP dominance.
An anecdotal and emotional claim that the market data does not support.
F2P games are spanking subscription games financially across all demographics. The only exception to this is WoW, and even that gigantic dinosaur from the subscription ages is losing share to current F2P and B2P games.
In fact, without empirical data the only accurate thing you can claim is YOU hate F2P games, and a market of one is no market.
The current crop of F2P games don't hold a candle to the amount that sub based games earned when they were actually made with innovation and heart. When games turned cookie cutter in design it became an all out war. Everyone has a smaller piece of the pie now that the market is saturated. One way around that is to offer a game that requires no sub but offers extreme restrictions that can be levied using real life money. MMORPG's don't last long anymore. Its common to see them come and go within just a couple years now. They aren't designed for a player to immerse themselves anymore.
So how can you compare lower earning F2P games to OLDER MMORPG's that are sub based and dieing out not due to their revenue model, but due to the primary fact that people eventually want to move on even if its great? WoW has been out for a very, very long time compared to these F2P games. It offered more to do in vanilla then most of them too. You can only do the exact same thing so many times.
The current crop of F2P games don't hold a candle to the amount that sub based games earned when they were actually made with innovation and heart.
Nexon alone posts profits far larger than SOE, Turbine and Funcom combined in their heydays.
Deal with the reality that you don't know as much about the genre as you think...Hell, NDoors is making more than Mythic was making with DaoC in its prime...over 300 million a year in profits. You really don't know much about the MMO world, just the western part of it which actually doesn't really have any F2P outside of Neverwinter, which is actually being run by PWI, an Eastern company. All you know is Freemium, and that is no where near as profitable as F2P.
This is a real world argument not a text book where's your data argument. And the real world I live in, which is full of adults making decent money, hate F2P games.
We understand there is far more value in paying one low price and having access to 100% percent of a game over the annoyances of managing nickels and dimes on your game time. You don't need data to know that. Its common sense.
F2P games are for kids / people on a budget (poor people that cant afford the cost of a meal for an entire months worth of game play) the financially incompetent or finally the guy with money to burn that wants to buy his way to PVP dominance.
An anecdotal and emotional claim that the market data does not support.
F2P games are spanking subscription games financially across all demographics. The only exception to this is WoW, and even that gigantic dinosaur from the subscription ages is losing share to current F2P and B2P games.
In fact, without empirical data the only accurate thing you can claim is YOU hate F2P games, and a market of one is no market.
The current crop of F2P games don't hold a candle to the amount that sub based games earned when they were actually made with innovation and heart. When games turned cookie cutter in design it became an all out war. Everyone has a smaller piece of the pie now that the market is saturated. One way around that is to offer a game that requires no sub but offers extreme restrictions that can be levied using real life money. MMORPG's don't last long anymore. Its common to see them come and go within just a couple years now. They aren't designed for a player to immerse themselves anymore.
So how can you compare lower earning F2P games to OLDER MMORPG's that are sub based and dieing out not due to their revenue model, but due to the primary fact that people eventually want to move on even if its great? WoW has been out for a very, very long time compared to these F2P games. It offered more to do in vanilla then most of them too. You can only do the exact same thing so many times.
Another claim based on emotion rather than fact.
You LIKED those games better so they must have made more money/had more users.
This is patently untrue. The truth is the market has increased from the subscription only era despite whatever you think of the titles. And when I say market I mean both the amount of money the industry brings in and the number of users.
The problem is that subscription proponents think that we can start charging subscriptions again (good game or not) and the company will offer up all they have for that price. That simply is not going to happen. it's never going to happen again. When has an economic opportunity opened up and the market then later went on to ignore it in favor of an older less profitable method? The F2P in-game cash shop is now a thing, and not just a novel thing but an extremely profitable thing. What will happen if subscriptions are brought back as the sole method of playing MMOs is that the online cash shop will come along for the ride. Any true capitalist wouldn't have it any other way.
So the idea that you can go back to the old ways so the game doesn't make you pay more for other things is wishful thinking.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
So your saying they're staying P2P for integrity of the game?
I have a feeling they have a good idea of when to switch over and right now they earn more and as is.
Yes, absolutely. They had a tremendous cash cow for a long time, so they were very risk-averse. Now, as subs drop, there are murmurs of going F2P. Which is understandable, since now they have less to lose -- even though they technically would've seen the same +100% revenue (likely much higher) increase had they switched to F2P at any point in the game's lifetime.
It's mostly just risk aversion.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The current crop of F2P games don't hold a candle to the amount that sub based games earned when they were actually made with innovation and heart. When games turned cookie cutter in design it became an all out war. Everyone has a smaller piece of the pie now that the market is saturated. One way around that is to offer a game that requires no sub but offers extreme restrictions that can be levied using real life money. MMORPG's don't last long anymore. Its common to see them come and go within just a couple years now. They aren't designed for a player to immerse themselves anymore.
So how can you compare lower earning F2P games to OLDER MMORPG's that are sub based and dieing out not due to their revenue model, but due to the primary fact that people eventually want to move on even if its great? WoW has been out for a very, very long time compared to these F2P games. It offered more to do in vanilla then most of them too. You can only do the exact same thing so many times.
Do you really believe that? I don't.
Just add up the number of 50-400 man teams modern F2P MMORPGs support compared with the number of teams older subscription MMORPGs support to get a general sense of how much money is being made. There are a lot of F2P MMORPGs going on out there.
So the community is more fragmented, but the revenue earned by F2P MMORPGs is significantly greater than pre-WOW MMORPGs.
If you turn the clock past WOW's release, subscription games may pull ahead of current F2P MMORPG revenue, but certainly pre-WOW those games weren't making more revenue than the modern F2P market.
And if you lumped in the F2P games which aren't MMORPGs it would be no contest. F2P games dwarf the paid game space currently, and the gap widens each year.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Free to play doesn't mean low quality or casual, it's a simple business model.
Then you say F2P is sought out by younger gamers who are spending their parent's money, while the real money is with the adults with discretionary gaming income (not sure why you cited gasoline expenditures in your op - are you suggesting that the only reason you leave your house is because you don't have a sub-based MMO keeping you there?).
Your fact of older people have more wealth is partially true, but is really a lopsided "fact". It fails to account for the increased costs of adulthood and the fact that average personal debt in the US is around $15k. That would tell you that people actually don't have hundreds to spend on games. While I'm not claiming that their costs of living are what's sucking up the money, I'm just pointing out that you can't count adults as having more money without counting their spending.
Teenagers/children have little responsibility (please, I don't need some teenager posting about how they support their cancer ridden mother - you're an exception not the rule, refrain from replying) and any money given to them is generally discretionary and written off by the parents. I just think you have a very weak point and it has little bearing on MMO's. Not to mention, most of us who played MMO's back in the day were actually teenagers at the time so . . .
"There are 500k of us, then our kids and a few million more that would slowly latch on to a premium oldschool game. One Million, all paying $20/month is better than baby-sitting 18 million WoW'tardz.."
What? Where are your numbers from and why is $20 considered "premium?" Then you go on to add that a few million more would just show up. And lastly you say that is better than baby sitting 18 million people. Um, no, to a business it's not better. In fact 500k vs 18 million is horrible. If you're suggesting that a small niche based game could attract 500k and possibly more, I wouldn't say no, but I would say, "Show me the game."
You're putting the cart waaaay before the horse here, you're talking numbers as all old school (read: older) gamers want the exact same thing. You're speaking for an entire community because you asked some buddies while watching TV together. Forgive me if I'm not inspired by your less than rigorous methods.
I also don't understand why a casual gamer wouldn't want a "premium" game either? If WoW is full of casual kiddie-tardz and it costs $15 a month - what exactly is the barrier to entry for this premium game? +$5/month? Your dividing line rests on $5 more per month? The number isn't completely arbitrary because the higher you crank it, the less of a chance you have of attracting that mythical 500k+ playerbase.
"Coincidentally, what is stereo-typing & over-generalizing other than a demographic ..?"
Well, neither are a demographic.
A demographic is identifying a population's (or portion of a population) structure. As in, 10 people in this thread are under 18, there are 20 people in this thread. 50% of this thread is below 18. Demographics are typically based on facts and acquiring the best data to determine those results.
Generalization is a extrapolating information from a smaller case. The second and third posters in this thread are 18, therefore most of the posters in this thread are 18. Likely to be very wrong.
A stereo-type is a commonly held idea of a group. All 18 year olds want to do is get drunk. Again, likely wrong.
So unless you have data showing X% of adult old school gamers want what you're saying they want, it's pretty much just you and a handful of guys making noise.
Look, the reason what you want isn't out there is because the support for this project currently doesn't appear to exist in the market. Camelot Unchained is a prime example is re-birthing (and in some cases, improving upon an old school title). If there were so many people chomping at the bits for something like this you would think it would have found more than 14,873 backers on kickstarter. That's a far cry from 500k.
Now, they hit their funding goal and I'm sure more than that ~15k are going to play it, but it's about the bigger picture. You say 500k and possibly growing from there. Why? Why is it possible? Where are these people going to come from? Are they all just hanging around buying gasoline waiting for an old school premium game to spend their money on?
This imaginary game doesn't just have the challenge of attracting 500k people, it has the specific challenge of attracting 500k people who want the same thing.
From my best attempts at finding a number (aka, multiple sites, not just wiki) EQ1 was somewhere in the range of 450k-500k at it's peak. You would have to attract 100% of those players to just make your estimate. This is assuming all those people still play MMO's.
Your age...?
I've been playing d&d and muds since the fido-net days. If you think all of us who read terry brooks, tolkien novels, & spent all those years roleplaying.. Don't want a high-quality game..? Or can't afford it.
Who are you trying to kid? Ask urself this.. why are you rallying so hard against a premium subscription game.?
Why again are you playing your free game 20h week? Free clearly lacks quality that a 15 mmo veteran demands.
I'm 31.
Im not rallying against a high quality game, I'm pointing out that you're talking fairy tales and making up numbers to support your imaginary high quality premium game. You cant just make statements and say, "this is what people want." You're being non specific with no facts and no game to speak of other than some high quality game.
For being 43 you really lack any cohesive thought process.
The MMORPG industry has changed into the MMO industry.
But the luminaries & oldschoolers who built this genre of gaming are now in the 30's & 40's. Brad McQuaid, John Smedley, Lord British and any of the people who played Meridain, Ultima & EQ. We are all adults now, all earning income & have homes, boats, sportscars, Jet ski's, etc..
So who exactly is asking for, & seeking out Free to Play games..?
It is children and adolescent youth from ages 12 ~22^ who have limited, or no source of income.
Just had my NFL draft this past weekend and looked around the room at many of my EQ guildmates and wondered why they would want a free game to play... So I asked. The response was unanimous "No!" They don't want to be troubled with "free realms" community & mentality. (easy is not challenging)
Your data sample appears skewed, as many ex-EQers seem to feel that if they aren't being regularly held back or penalized, then the content sucks. Of course they'd want to pay when given the option of pay or free.
However, since the conclusion you presented is stated as fact, it's entirely possible you're basing that on some kind of actual data. Could you link that, please?
The actual data is based on the fact, as people get older... they have more wealth. Thus more to spend.
You know (?), as these strange creatures called "adults" as the mature from adolescents. These adults tend to seek out more and more challenging things to quench their thirst.
The move from checkers, to chess... as their thinking and problem solving grow dynamically.
How old are you?
Your post sounds extremely snobby, and aside from that you're wrong. You're saying just because people are younger they don't want stimulating gameplay? Where the hell do you get off throwing a whole age group into some ridiculous stereotype? College students have jobs and most of us are able to afford a $15 a month fee for a MMORPG. Everything you've said has been pretty much dead wrong and opinionated to the point of complete blindness.
The current crop of F2P games don't hold a candle to the amount that sub based games earned when they were actually made with innovation and heart. When games turned cookie cutter in design it became an all out war. Everyone has a smaller piece of the pie now that the market is saturated. One way around that is to offer a game that requires no sub but offers extreme restrictions that can be levied using real life money. MMORPG's don't last long anymore. Its common to see them come and go within just a couple years now. They aren't designed for a player to immerse themselves anymore.
So how can you compare lower earning F2P games to OLDER MMORPG's that are sub based and dieing out not due to their revenue model, but due to the primary fact that people eventually want to move on even if its great? WoW has been out for a very, very long time compared to these F2P games. It offered more to do in vanilla then most of them too. You can only do the exact same thing so many times.
Do you really believe that? I don't.
Just add up the number of 50-400 man teams modern F2P MMORPGs support compared with the number of teams older subscription MMORPGs support to get a general sense of how much money is being made. There are a lot of F2P MMORPGs going on out there.
So the community is more fragmented, but the revenue earned by F2P MMORPGs is significantly greater than pre-WOW MMORPGs.
If you turn the clock past WOW's release, subscription games may pull ahead of current F2P MMORPG revenue, but certainly pre-WOW those games weren't making more revenue than the modern F2P market.
And if you lumped in the F2P games which aren't MMORPGs it would be no contest. F2P games dwarf the paid game space currently, and the gap widens each year.
But why are you so overly concerned with a companies revenues and how much they can make VS players having a high quality premium game..?
You don't seem to understand the difference between McDonald's & Ruth Chris steakhouse..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
I think more than gainful employment , age or experience in the MMO world play into whether you like f2p games. I think it has a lot to do with WHY you enjoy MMO's. I think that MMO's originally derived as a way to escape reality. A way to visit an altered reality in which you were virtually whomever you wanted to be and could completely leave real life behind and lose yourself in a fantasy world of heroes.
I think that older MMO players who started playing MMO's because they were an escape remember how incredible and awesome that alternate reality of friends was. It was a magical place you could visit from the security of your own home and become friends with people from all over the world.
Consolers and younger gamers started entering the market when PC's became more affordable. They didn't look to video games so much as a release or a social outlet as they did ... video games. They were used to playing a GAME not visiting an alternate home in a virtual world. The social aspects were there to help you complete a goal... winning the GAME. You weren't there for the same reasons the vet MMOers were, enjoying the GAME. Gaming in general evolved with mixed platform gaming and the mainstream entering the market for PC games.
If you're looking to WIN, get to ENDgame, power level and then move on to the next game to WIN, why not have it F2P? I mean why extend out how long it takes to WIN and have a sub? If you're looking to build something with other people, over time, enjoy the lore, take your time and actually INVEST in your toon and the other players, a sub makes more sense. It's a commitment. It takes time. I think P2P advocates are looking for a home, somewhere to build some memory and meaning and F2P players are simply looking to play and WIN a GAME.
Devs should plan better what they are trying to accomplish when they make a game and stop trying to please everyone.
The MMORPG industry has changed into the MMO industry.
But the luminaries & oldschoolers who built this genre of gaming are now in the 30's & 40's. Brad McQuaid, John Smedley, Lord British and any of the people who played Meridain, Ultima & EQ. We are all adults now, all earning income & have homes, boats, sportscars, Jet ski's, etc..
So who exactly is asking for, & seeking out Free to Play games..?
It is children and adolescent youth from ages 12 ~22^ who have limited, or no source of income.
Just had my NFL draft this past weekend and looked around the room at many of my EQ guildmates and wondered why they would want a free game to play... So I asked. The response was unanimous "No!" They don't want to be troubled with "free realms" community & mentality. (easy is not challenging)
Your data sample appears skewed, as many ex-EQers seem to feel that if they aren't being regularly held back or penalized, then the content sucks. Of course they'd want to pay when given the option of pay or free.
However, since the conclusion you presented is stated as fact, it's entirely possible you're basing that on some kind of actual data. Could you link that, please?
The actual data is based on the fact, as people get older... they have more wealth. Thus more to spend.
You know (?), as these strange creatures called "adults" as the mature from adolescents. These adults tend to seek out more and more challenging things to quench their thirst.
The move from checkers, to chess... as their thinking and problem solving grow dynamically.
How old are you?
Your post sounds extremely snobby, and aside from that you're wrong. You're saying just because people are younger they don't want stimulating gameplay? Where the hell do you get off throwing a whole age group into some ridiculous stereotype? College students have jobs and most of us are able to afford a $15 a month fee for a MMORPG. Everything you've said has been pretty much dead wrong and opinionated to the point of complete blindness.
Off topic:
So you are saying that in 15 years, you'll be making less than you are now, even with a college education..? Or, are you dead wrong and just upset you currently cannot easily afford a premium game, so you emotionally responded..?
Understand, I was in college and I afforded such things... but again I did say adolescent youth. There are some adults at the age of 18... and some adolescent 25 year olds.. everyone knows this.
Was there a point to your post, other than to say I am wrong and that you'd rather play a free game, than one designed as a premium game..? I am confused..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
The actual data is based on the fact, as people get older... they have more wealth. Thus more to spend.
You know (?), as these strange creatures called "adults" as the mature from adolescents. These adults tend to seek out more and more challenging things to quench their thirst.
The move from checkers, to chess... as their thinking and problem solving grow dynamically.
How old are you?
None of which shows any correlation between how people choose to pay or not pay for their entertainment.
None of which shows that free to play games are less challenging than pay to play games.
So have any data at all?
This is a real world argument not a text book where's your data argument. And the real world I live in, which is full of adults making decent money, hate F2P games.
We understand there is far more value in paying one low price and having access to 100% percent of a game over the annoyances of managing nickels and dimes on your game time. You don't need data to know that. Its common sense.
F2P games are for kids / people on a budget (poor people that cant afford the cost of a meal for an entire months worth of game play) the financially incompetent or finally the guy with money to burn that wants to buy his way to PVP dominance.
Yes this is the real world and in the real world if someone presents an argument it is up to them to provide support for that argument. He didn't. Further if someone is going to discredit another person's argument it helps if what they are using to discredit is actually relevant to the original point or backs up the orginal point. It wasn't and didn't.
in the real world it is full of adults making decent money that like free to play games.
We understand there is far more value in choosing how you want to pay and play rather than paying one price for many things you don't want and will never use. You don't need data to know that, it's common sense.
F2P games are for adults who value their money and want more choice in how and where to spend it.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
Yes, as I got older I gained more wealth. I also gain more wisdom. I also learned from my mistakes. Those mistakes include paying full price at launch and even lifetime subscription for games that were mediocre at best.
I want to be able to play for free so I can try out the game to see whether I like it. If it's good I will pay fro the box plus sub. If publishers made the first 20 levels free to play it would force developers to give us something good and not just the mediocre crap they have been giving us over the last couple of years.
everyone wants to play good games for free but thats not how it works and its not that simple. Games arent charity. But companies waste too much money on the wrong parts of the game.... If they spend money wisely they wouldnt need to milk players or to force a subscription-only model. And people would stop saying that sub = superiority, which isnt true anymore, because the companies arent being smart with the money anymore. They just throw money everywhere to try and get fame claiming their game is the most expensive one ever. Swtor taught us that more money does not = better product.
If they stop wasting money while making a game, the B2P model would reign. Not free, and not milking.
Holy [CENSORED]!!!!!
Common sense?
WTF
The only difference for me, is that B2P would be OK, if that's what it truly is. Not F2P with a boxed fee. But that's just my personal preference, I don't like shops in the game.
I guess you could say they do on average. I doubt if they F2P are out earning WoW.
F2P WOW would earn more than P2P WOW, so what's your point?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
i didnt mention cash shop but i was strictly talking about B2P vs Sub-only models. Leaving full free out of the equation. The only reason behind a subscription taht actually makes a bit of sense is to maintain servers and people working on them. WHich can be addressed if the company use the money wisely.
So your saying they're staying P2P for integrity of the game?
I have a feeling they have a good idea of when to switch over and right now they earn more and as is.
Right, because your entire post wasn't one massive assumption, you are the world authority on the MMO industry.
Also love how you still call MMOs that are forced to go F2P due to lack of people playing them "AAA"...anything to help fit your narrow view into the little bubble you created for it.
F2P is taking over in the west because the west has been lagging behind the east on revenue for many years...and with games of far lower quality. Now that the quality of eastern games are catching up, the west has little choice but convert or be bought out like so many others already have. Nexon alone has spent more money buying out companies than Turbine, Funcom and Trion makes combined.
They switch because there is more money in the F2P field...now if only they actually went F2P and not FREEMIUM, which is NOT where the money is. The west better shape up quick before they lose it all...the only big guns that are going to remain are EA and Blizzard...EA is trash and Blizzard isn't exactly pushing out a lot of MMOs.
Since you said "F2P' and not "a F2P game" I will tell you that you are guessing wrong.
Nexon is the third largest gaming company on the planet profit wise behind only Activision/Blizzard and EA.
Two of those companies make a ton of games that are not MMOs...the other makes over 60% of their profits from their F2P online games...guess which it is.
Now factor in the profits of NDoors which spent over 300 million of their profits buying out companies the last couple years and NCSoft which also makes most of their profits from non-sub games...or that somehow Runes of Magic is making massive profits after all these years. Or how about how PWI is posting profits placing it just behind SOE which makes 100x as many products...
Sorry, WoW is not making more than F2P. F2P is where the real money is, you don't see it because you don't know F2P, you know FREEMIUMs that are being called F2P here in the west. Neverwinter is one of the FEW true F2P games made in the west, but its being run by an eastern company, PWI.
This is a real world argument not a text book where's your data argument. And the real world I live in, which is full of adults making decent money, hate F2P games.
We understand there is far more value in paying one low price and having access to 100% percent of a game over the annoyances of managing nickels and dimes on your game time. You don't need data to know that. Its common sense.
F2P games are for kids / people on a budget (poor people that cant afford the cost of a meal for an entire months worth of game play) the financially incompetent or finally the guy with money to burn that wants to buy his way to PVP dominance.
Sure as long as your real world argument is based on the tiny portion of the real world that exists in your little head.
The actual real world, as in the entire planet, says you are wrong.
An anecdotal and emotional claim that the market data does not support.
F2P games are spanking subscription games financially across all demographics. The only exception to this is WoW, and even that gigantic dinosaur from the subscription ages is losing share to current F2P and B2P games.
In fact, without empirical data the only accurate thing you can claim is YOU hate F2P games, and a market of one is no market.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
The current crop of F2P games don't hold a candle to the amount that sub based games earned when they were actually made with innovation and heart. When games turned cookie cutter in design it became an all out war. Everyone has a smaller piece of the pie now that the market is saturated. One way around that is to offer a game that requires no sub but offers extreme restrictions that can be levied using real life money. MMORPG's don't last long anymore. Its common to see them come and go within just a couple years now. They aren't designed for a player to immerse themselves anymore.
So how can you compare lower earning F2P games to OLDER MMORPG's that are sub based and dieing out not due to their revenue model, but due to the primary fact that people eventually want to move on even if its great? WoW has been out for a very, very long time compared to these F2P games. It offered more to do in vanilla then most of them too. You can only do the exact same thing so many times.
Nexon alone posts profits far larger than SOE, Turbine and Funcom combined in their heydays.
Deal with the reality that you don't know as much about the genre as you think...Hell, NDoors is making more than Mythic was making with DaoC in its prime...over 300 million a year in profits. You really don't know much about the MMO world, just the western part of it which actually doesn't really have any F2P outside of Neverwinter, which is actually being run by PWI, an Eastern company. All you know is Freemium, and that is no where near as profitable as F2P.
Another claim based on emotion rather than fact.
You LIKED those games better so they must have made more money/had more users.
This is patently untrue. The truth is the market has increased from the subscription only era despite whatever you think of the titles. And when I say market I mean both the amount of money the industry brings in and the number of users.
The problem is that subscription proponents think that we can start charging subscriptions again (good game or not) and the company will offer up all they have for that price. That simply is not going to happen. it's never going to happen again. When has an economic opportunity opened up and the market then later went on to ignore it in favor of an older less profitable method? The F2P in-game cash shop is now a thing, and not just a novel thing but an extremely profitable thing. What will happen if subscriptions are brought back as the sole method of playing MMOs is that the online cash shop will come along for the ride. Any true capitalist wouldn't have it any other way.
So the idea that you can go back to the old ways so the game doesn't make you pay more for other things is wishful thinking.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Yes, absolutely. They had a tremendous cash cow for a long time, so they were very risk-averse. Now, as subs drop, there are murmurs of going F2P. Which is understandable, since now they have less to lose -- even though they technically would've seen the same +100% revenue (likely much higher) increase had they switched to F2P at any point in the game's lifetime.
It's mostly just risk aversion.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Do you really believe that? I don't.
Just add up the number of 50-400 man teams modern F2P MMORPGs support compared with the number of teams older subscription MMORPGs support to get a general sense of how much money is being made. There are a lot of F2P MMORPGs going on out there.
So the community is more fragmented, but the revenue earned by F2P MMORPGs is significantly greater than pre-WOW MMORPGs.
If you turn the clock past WOW's release, subscription games may pull ahead of current F2P MMORPG revenue, but certainly pre-WOW those games weren't making more revenue than the modern F2P market.
And if you lumped in the F2P games which aren't MMORPGs it would be no contest. F2P games dwarf the paid game space currently, and the gap widens each year.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm 31.
Im not rallying against a high quality game, I'm pointing out that you're talking fairy tales and making up numbers to support your imaginary high quality premium game. You cant just make statements and say, "this is what people want." You're being non specific with no facts and no game to speak of other than some high quality game.
For being 43 you really lack any cohesive thought process.
Your post sounds extremely snobby, and aside from that you're wrong. You're saying just because people are younger they don't want stimulating gameplay? Where the hell do you get off throwing a whole age group into some ridiculous stereotype? College students have jobs and most of us are able to afford a $15 a month fee for a MMORPG. Everything you've said has been pretty much dead wrong and opinionated to the point of complete blindness.
Smile
But why are you so overly concerned with a companies revenues and how much they can make VS players having a high quality premium game..?
You don't seem to understand the difference between McDonald's & Ruth Chris steakhouse..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
I think more than gainful employment , age or experience in the MMO world play into whether you like f2p games. I think it has a lot to do with WHY you enjoy MMO's. I think that MMO's originally derived as a way to escape reality. A way to visit an altered reality in which you were virtually whomever you wanted to be and could completely leave real life behind and lose yourself in a fantasy world of heroes.
I think that older MMO players who started playing MMO's because they were an escape remember how incredible and awesome that alternate reality of friends was. It was a magical place you could visit from the security of your own home and become friends with people from all over the world.
Consolers and younger gamers started entering the market when PC's became more affordable. They didn't look to video games so much as a release or a social outlet as they did ... video games. They were used to playing a GAME not visiting an alternate home in a virtual world. The social aspects were there to help you complete a goal... winning the GAME. You weren't there for the same reasons the vet MMOers were, enjoying the GAME. Gaming in general evolved with mixed platform gaming and the mainstream entering the market for PC games.
If you're looking to WIN, get to ENDgame, power level and then move on to the next game to WIN, why not have it F2P? I mean why extend out how long it takes to WIN and have a sub? If you're looking to build something with other people, over time, enjoy the lore, take your time and actually INVEST in your toon and the other players, a sub makes more sense. It's a commitment. It takes time. I think P2P advocates are looking for a home, somewhere to build some memory and meaning and F2P players are simply looking to play and WIN a GAME.
Devs should plan better what they are trying to accomplish when they make a game and stop trying to please everyone.
No bitchers.
Off topic:
So you are saying that in 15 years, you'll be making less than you are now, even with a college education..? Or, are you dead wrong and just upset you currently cannot easily afford a premium game, so you emotionally responded..?
Understand, I was in college and I afforded such things... but again I did say adolescent youth. There are some adults at the age of 18... and some adolescent 25 year olds.. everyone knows this.
Was there a point to your post, other than to say I am wrong and that you'd rather play a free game, than one designed as a premium game..? I am confused..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
I'm not overly concerned with it. I was responding to a false impression the other poster had.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yes this is the real world and in the real world if someone presents an argument it is up to them to provide support for that argument. He didn't. Further if someone is going to discredit another person's argument it helps if what they are using to discredit is actually relevant to the original point or backs up the orginal point. It wasn't and didn't.
in the real world it is full of adults making decent money that like free to play games.
We understand there is far more value in choosing how you want to pay and play rather than paying one price for many things you don't want and will never use. You don't need data to know that, it's common sense.
F2P games are for adults who value their money and want more choice in how and where to spend it.